


Five Apologies and a Kiss Goodnight

by shadowen



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Asexual Character, Dating, F/M, Flowers, Genderswap, Hate to Love, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Phil screws up, Slow Build, Unrequited Love, Women Being Awesome, ace clint, but then he gets his shit together, girl clint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 08:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3202187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowen/pseuds/shadowen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She hates me. Which, of course, means Romanov hates me. Two of the deadliest assassins on the planet, people who hold my life in their hands on a daily basis, hate me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Apologies and a Kiss Goodnight

**Author's Note:**

> Like so many things, this is all darkmagyk's fault, and you can thank hoosierbitch for helping me make it better.

Taking over as the handler for Strike Team Delta was a landmark moment in Phil’s career. He only regretted it once, for five minutes, halfway through his first mission with the team, when Barton had him pinned against the wall with her hands around his neck.

“I fucking told you, you stupid asshole!” she screamed in his face. “I told you to let me take the shot. Do they not teach you this shit in Handler 101, or have you just had so many assets punch you in the fucking face that you’ve got brain damage?”

Hill had promised not to intervene, no matter what went wrong, and she stayed true to her word, standing calmly to the side while Phil’s life flashed before his eyes. Everything he knew about Barton was from her reputation and personnel file, which had apparently left him unprepared to deal with her in person, at least when her partner's safety was on the line. 

"Our intel said th-"

"The intel was wrong!" Barton cut off his weak reply. "The intel is always wrong, for fuck’s sake. If the intel says the target’s on the fifth floor, you can damn well bet they’ll be on the sixth, and only a moron would bet his agents’ lives on the word of some analyst in a cubicle. Goddammit. If anything happens to Natasha because you couldn't get your head out of your ass, I swear t-"

"She'll be fine, Clint," Hill said suddenly. "We'll get her back."

Barton stilled, her sharp eyes boring through Phil's head, her fingers pressing into his throat for just a moment too long. The she let out a snort and stepped back, leaving Phil to lean against the wall and pretend he wasn't gulping air into his lungs.

"We _will_ retrieve Agent Romanov," Phil gasped. "You have my word on that."

Barton gave him a poisonous glance and replied acidly, "We better."

It wasn't until later that Phil realized Hill's intervention hadn't been to help him, but to stop Barton before she could verbally threaten a superior officer. It wasn't until _much_ later that he realized Barton would almost definitely have followed through with that threat if they hadn't ultimately found Romanov already fighting her way out of the AIM compound, a trail of defeated minions in her wake and an encrypted hard drive in her pocket.

“What took you so long?” she asked, delivering one more kick to knock out the last minion.

“Stopped for donuts,” Barton replied. She had a gunshot wound in her leg and was leaning heavily on Hill. “They had some of those ones with the blackberry filling that we got that one time, but there were only two and I ate both of them, which is what you get for being a dumbass getting your ass captured.”

Romanov punched her in the shoulder, and the two of them shared a grin that was positively chilling.

Phil was thinking about blood loss and intel and how much crap he was going to get when he was demoted back to level six and assigned to permanent desk duty for screwing this up.

Once they were safely back to base, mission miraculously accomplished, he went to see Barton in medical, bearing a small potted cactus as a peace offering, and found her playing what looked like an intense game of checkers with May. Barton glanced up at him, scowled, and looked back at the board, her fingers hovering over a red piece. May at least gave Phil the courtesy of a nod before turning back to the game.

Phil cleared his throat. “I realize I’m not exactly welcome at the moment, but I wanted to apologize for my failure today.” Neither of them looked at him, and Phil pressed on, “You were right, Agent Barton. I should have let you take the shot, and by prioritizing intel over your instinct, I put both you and Agent Romanov in danger. That should never have happened, and I’m sincerely sorry.”

Still scowling, Barton asked May. “What’s he saying? I mean, I could make him repeat it, but that would be a lot of work and I kind of don’t feel like seeing his stupid face.”

Heat crawled up the back of Phil’s neck. Of course Barton wouldn’t be wearing her hearing aids in medical, and any handler worth their team would have realized that. Phil could have stood there shouting all day, and it wouldn’t have made a difference.

May waited until Barton was looking at her to answer, “He says you were right, and he’s sorry.”

“Oh. Well, good. He oughta be sorry,” Barton grumbled. “Fucking intel my ass. Coulda saved us all a lot of trouble. But no, actually listening to me when I said I had the shot would have screwed up his perfect little plan instead of, y’know, getting the job done without Natasha having to take out a whole compound by herself. I helped a little, but still.”

Suddenly, Barton looked up at him, looked _through_ him, and saw something that made her scowl waver. “You pull that shit again, and we’re gonna have a problem. Sir.”

Phil shook his head. “Never again. You have my word.”

Barton hmphed like she had an opinion about what his word was worth, but she went back to her checkers with a murmur of, “Alright then.”

Setting the cactus on a side table, Phil beat a dignified retreat, and it didn’t occur to him until the next day that he’d just been very rudely called out by a subordinate and that it was the first time Barton had ever called him _sir_.

***

After several months as designated handler, Phil had to admit to himself that, while he had nothing but respect for Agent Barton, he absolutely could not stand _Clint_. As an operative, Barton was focused, competent, and brilliant. Off mission, Phil frequently found himself resisting the urge to sedate her.

A joint op with Strike Team Epsilon had the two teams sharing a transport to the drop sight. With Romanov piloting and Carter claiming the front, Phil was left in the transport hold with the rest of the agents, watching Barton hold court.

“So now this guy is just, like, freaking out, running around and tearing his clothes off, and I just looked at Romanov like, you were totally right. That shit was poisoned,” she said, concluding a long and pointless story that had her audience hooting with laughter.

There were open seats, but Barton had elected to perch on Rumlow’s knee, surrounding herself with the members of the other strike team, who she kept entertained with a series of absurd stories and dirty jokes. Throughout the trip, Rumlow kept trying to put a hand on her knee, and Barton kept shoving him off, tossing her hair and giggling, “Stop it!”

For his part, Phil amused himself by calculating how quickly he could immobilize all of Epsilon and what it would take to render Barton unhurt but temporarily mute.

When Rumlow was bold enough to sneak his hand higher up on her thigh, Barton looked scandalized and slapped him lightly. “Christ, you perv, cut it out!”

“Agent Rumlow,” Phil snapped. “If you can’t keep your hands to yourself, there are restraints available.”

Rumlow shot Phil a glare, but Barton grinned in satisfaction and punched Rumlow’s shoulder. “See? Coulson knows how to treat a lady.”

Phil’s skin prickled as if he’d swallowed something sour. “Agent Barton, perhaps you should find a seat of your own. We’ll be starting our approach soon.”

Barton’s smile dimmed, but she shrugged and swung herself into an empty chair without protest. “Probably right, sir. These boys smell like a barn, anyway.”

“Right, ‘cause you smell like roses and baby powder,” one of the other agents drawled. Phil gave him a warning look, but the man ignored him in favor of leering at Barton.

“Kevlar and gun oil,” Barton corrected sweetly, “but that’s just as sexy.”

Phil resisted the urge to roll his eyes and tried to focus on reading the intel brief for the third time.

The mission, predictably, went to shit. Delta was only ever involved in anything that stood a ninety-seven percent chance of going completely off the rails, and Barton and Romanov were so adept at improvisation that Phil no longer thought twice about throwing the original plan out the window. When all was said and done, he considered it a general success, even if an abandoned building or two might have been blown up in the process.

His positive mood only lasted until he was waiting at the rendezvous with two members of Epsilon who seemed to be rehashing the mission highlights and their own personal achievements. Uninterested in their conversation, Phil was sending check-in texts and preliminary reports, but he looked up when one of them mentioned Barton.

“Stupid bitch nearly got us all killed,” the man grumbled, and his companion snorted.

“Did you fucking hear her?” He pitched his voice higher in obvious imitation of Barton’s. “Oh my god, there was, like, a tree in the way? So, like, I had to move, but these dudes, like, totally saw me?”

“What was that, Agent Lucas?” Phil asked sharply, and both of them jerked to attention.

“Nothing, sir. We’re just talking, sir,” Lucas answered, the two of them glancing at each other.

“It sounded to me like you were mocking another agent,” Phil said. “An agent, I might add, who managed to accomplish her objective and save several dozen lives, despite being spotted by her targets.”

“We’re not saying she’s not good at her job, sir,” the first man, Reynolds, put in quickly. “She’s one of the best, she’s just... y’know.”

“A stupid bitch?” Phil supplied, unimpressed.

“Flaky,” Lucas finished, adding immediately, “Don’t get me wrong. I like Barton, and she’s good in a tight spot. But...”

“You gotta admit she’s not the sharpest tool in the shed,” Reynolds said.

For a moment, Phil seriously considered knocking their heads together, but the arrival of another agent saved him from having to talk himself out of it. The rest of the team slowly convened, and Barton and Romanov straggled in just seconds ahead of the transport, both of them looking battle-worn but upbeat.

Phil took over piloting duties for the flight home, and he was surprised when Barton claimed the co-pilot’s chair. He hoped against hope that she would use the time to sleep or play games on her phone or do absolutely anything that didn’t involve talking, but Phil had never been that lucky.

"Then there was that stalker pigeon in Amsterdam. Like, every time I'd set up a shot, this pigeon would come down and just, y'know, sit there, right in my sights. Nat says it had a death wish or something, but I think it just really liked me, 'cause then I started seeing it freaking everywhere. I mean, I know there's probably a bazillion pigeons in Amsterdam, but I swear to god it was the same one. That's freaky, right? Getting stalked by, like, this fat little bird? Anyway, I finally managed to get a shot around it, and we went home, but then it showed up at my apartment! Like, it can't be the same one, right? There's no way it could have flown that far, but this is definitely not a New York pigeon." She paused, and Phil thought for one blessed second that she might actually be finished. Then she went on, "Are European pigeons and American pigeons related? That seems like a weird thing to have come across. I mean, assuming pigeons are even indi... indifferent? Indigenous! Indigenous to Europe. Maybe it's one of those things where, like, they evolved in two different places on their own. That would be kind of cool. Pigeons, though. They're fucking everywhere, but how much do you really know about them? I mean, doves and eagles get all that symbolic shit. Even crows, and they're some sketchy motherfuckers. Oh man! This one time, I totally convinced a bunch of recruits that I could talk to birds. Which would be the lamest superpower ever, but their minds were totally blown. It was great."

In spite of himself, Phil sighed, and Barton tilted her head curiously. "Something wrong, boss?" 

There was no polite way to ask her to shut the hell up, so Phil just answered mildly, "No, Agent Barton, nothing's wrong."

"Oh my god, there's totally something wrong." She turned in her seat to face him. "Are you mad at me for fucking up? Because it was so not my fault. Those surveillance photos were old, so there was no way I could have known there'd be a tree there."

"Of course not," Phil agreed. He wasn't about to hold her accountable for bad intel or bad luck, but he wasn't in the mood to soothe any nerves at the moment.

"Crap. You really are mad at me, aren't you?" Barton pouted. "Sir, I know we're not really on friendly terms, but you totally can't blame me for this. I mean, I guess you can, since you're the boss, but that would be really really unfair. I know you're a fair kinda guy, and you know Natasha won't work with anybody else if you kick me to the curb, so can you just maybe cut me some slack this one time? Please? Pretty please with s-"

"Oh for fuck's sake," Phil snapped, and Barton jerked back, wide-eyed and startled. "I'm not angry, and you're not in trouble, so would you please just drop this ridiculous act?"

Barton blinked, frowning. "What act?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about. This... this..." Phil waved a hand vaguely at her and tried to think of a better description than _dumb blonde_. "Your aptitude scores are staggering, you're one of the best analysts SHIELD has ever had and _the_ best strategist I've ever worked with, including Director Fury, yet you insist on acting like a vapid, insouciant farm girl with nothing more substantial in your head than flinging yourself at neanderthals and spouting some nonsense about pigeons. Unlike Rumlow and his barbarians, I don't buy it for a second, and I'm both insulted that you think I would and exhausted from listening to this inane babble, so for the sake of my sanity, would you please _stop_."

He'd meant to be more delicate, but he hoped Barton would appreciate his candor, at least. The only answer was silence, and Phil looked away from the viewscreen to find her staring at him with a blank, lifeless expression. After months of suffering her blinding false smile and energetic prattle, the sudden absence of feeling was unsettling. Phil wasn't sure what to say as a follow-up to is tirade, so he said nothing, until Barton finally murmured, "Oh. Okay."

Phil sighed again. "I don’t mean to be so harsh, b-"

"Whatever," Barton muttered. She was out of her seat and headed for the transport hold before he could call her back.

Immediately, Phil knew that he had just made a catastrophic error in judgment, but he wasn't entirely sure what exactly that error was.

He got his answer nearly a week later when Hill walked straight into his office and punched him in the mouth. "That's for whatever you said to Barton." She dropped into the chair across from him as he put a hand over his tender lip. "Now tell me what you said so I can decide whether to let Romanov kill you."

There was no doubt in Phil's mind that she wasn't exaggerating. "Barton didn't tell you?"

Hill gave him a look. "She doesn't tell anyone anything, not even Romanov."

"Then how do y-?"

"Because she's upset about something, and Romanov wants to start putting cyanide in your coffee," Hill replied. "There was nothing in the mission reports, and I know nothing's happened on the base, so it must have been something off-record between you and her. It's in your best interest to tell me right the hell now what that something was."

"Is that an order, Assistant Director?" Phil really did not want to have this conversation.

"I can make it one," Hill snapped. When Phil hesitated, she pinched the bridge of her nose. "The last time Natasha wanted to poison someone slowly, it was a senior agent who threatened to file some made-up disciplinary charge if Clint didn't suck his cock."

" _What?_ Who?" Phil demanded, stunned. "If Romanov didn't kill them, I will."

He was halfway out of his chair, and Hill waved him down. "May took care of it," she assured him. "The point is, I know you're not that guy. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but..."

"Never. I'd never do something like that. All I said..." Phil sighed, rubbing his temples. "I told her to drop the act."

Hill's expression immediately turned to one of sympathy. "Oh, _Phil_."

"I know." He shook his head. "At least, I think I know. Honestly, I have no idea what I actually said wrong, but the last thing I wanted to do was insult her. I was just..."

"Irritated?" Hill suggested. "Tired of watching a certified genius play Agent Barbie for a bunch of meatheads? Frustrated with trying to figure out whether it really is an act or if she's actually that flaky?" 

"How did you deal with it? I can't see you putting up with that much..." Once again, Phil found himself hunting for a better word than _blonde_. "That much chatter for very long."

Hill shrugged. "I talked to her."

He wasn't sure how he was expected to get a word in edgewise when Barton barely paused to breathe or how he could hold an actual conversation about pigeons, but he saw Hill's point. "I'll try." He paused and amended, "If Barton ever speaks to me again, and Romanov doesn't poison me in the meantime, I'll try."

"You know you're going to have to apologize, right?" Hill told him, and Phil nodded miserably. "Get chocolate. Not the apology assortment with the caramel and shit. Just a bar of good dark chocolate. And flowers."

Phil raised an eyebrow. "Flowers? Really?"

"Yes, really. Nobody brings her flowers," Hill said archly. "You want to keep your coffee cyanide-free? Find prairie roses."

As soon as she was gone, Phil started calling flower shops.

He'd sent enough messages of condolences and "Sorry for blowing up your business", not to mention his handful of short-lived attempts at a love life, that he had a fair number of connections in the flowers-and-chocolate world. The chocolate was easy, but it took nineteen phone calls and one threat of subpoena to find the only florist in the city that carried wild prairie roses.

By the time Phil knocked on Barton's door with a beautifully arranged basket, he was half hoping she might have forgotten to be angry with him. That hope evaporated when she opened the door and crossed her arms, glaring at him in expectant silence. She was always so animated, even in anger, that the stillness was almost more frightening than her deadly stare.

"I'm sorry to bother you at home, but I wanted to apologize," Phil began. "What I said to you about... about your behavior was not only unprofessional and uncalled for, it was ignorant and rude, and I want you to know that I have nothing but respect for you as a colleague and as an individual. I offended you and made an ass of myself, and I'm sorry."

Barton narrowed her eyes, looking him up and down like she was sizing him up for a coffin. Phil could hold his own against any agent in the field, but Barton was a cut above the rest in every regard. If she wanted him dead, there wasn't much he could do about it.

Finally, she said flatly. "You brought me flowers."

"I... yes. I thought you might... appreciate them, I suppose." Phil held up the basket in offering, but Barton kept her arms crossed.

"Nobody brings me flowers."

For some reason, hearing her say it made Phil's stomach tighten. "I hope there aren't that many jerks who owe you apologies."

Barton blinked. After a moment, she huffed and snatched the basket out of Phil's hand. "Most of 'em don't bother, so I guess you get points for that." She gave him another considering look and went on, "You don't like how I talk, you don't have to talk to me. Just gimme my orders and let me do my job. There's nowhere that says you've gotta like me, and I'm not gonna try and make you. Okay?"

"I... Okay, but that's not w-"

"Thanks for this. See you at debrief," she said and promptly shut the door in his face.

Phil stood there for a full ten seconds, trying to process what had just happened. He walked away with the distinct impression that he would be buying a lot more flowers in the near future.

***

As far as Phil could tell, Barton forgave him without actually forgiving him. She was every bit as professional and respectful as any handler could want and never said one word more than necessary to Phil, even as she chattered cheerfully to whoever else happened to be around. On the rare occasion they were alone, she was stubbornly silent.

"She hates me," he complained to Hill, who hummed vaguely. "Which, of course, means Romanov hates me. Two of the deadliest assassins on the planet, people who hold my life in their hands on a daily basis, hate me."

Hill snorted. "Been sleeping with your eyes open?"

"Insightful as always, Agent Hill," Phil grumbled.

"Happy to help, Agent Coulson."

Phil was resolved to treat the situation with the same cool distance as his assets, confident that their loyalty to SHIELD and to each other was enough to get the job done and reasonably certain they wouldn't leave him to bleed out in an alley. That cool distance began to close when a recon mission in Budapest went, obviously, to shit.

"I'm not sure you heard me," Phil snapped into his phone. "Delta is pinned down, and I need back-up for extraction."

" _I'm sorry, Agent Coulson, th-_."

"Don't give me an apology. Give me an ETA for that back-up." In his other ear, his comm continued broadcasting the sounds of Barton and Romanov fighting for their lives, trapped in a tenement and surrounded by hostiles. He didn't have time for bureaucracy.

" _That's a negative, agent. Abort and exit immediately._ "

The reply on Phil's tongue was cut off by a deafening burst of white noise on his comm, then silence. He didn't bother signing off, already running as he shoved the phone into his pocket and pulled out his gun. "Delta, what's your status?"

Nothing. No answer, no gunfire, not even static. Phil ran faster.

"Barton? Romanov? Do you copy?"

He'd never actually wanted to hear Barton's voice before, but he suddenly needed to have her swear at him and tell him to get off his useless ass and do something. He wanted her and Romanov yelling at him in tandem, giving him updates and calling him names, and all the comm gave him was empty air. Phil set his jaw and made himself pause in a doorway for cover instead of rushing blind into the firefight.

There were two hostiles on the roof above him, and two shots took them down, giving him a clear run to the building's front door where a third attacker, lurking in the entryway, was very surprised to see him and his oncoming fist. The man in the stairwell spotted him and forced him to dive around a corner under a hail of gunfire. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

Since she'd stopped speaking to him, Phil had taken to unintentionally eavesdropping on Barton's conversations, and he'd overheard her telling a recruit that visualizing a target was more important than seeing it. He closed his eyes, calling up an image of the stairwell with the other shooter's position. Crouching down, he changed his angle so that he would be below the line of fire, opened his eyes, darted around the corner, and squeezed off two headshots without blinking.

As he rushed up the stairs and past the bleeding body, Phil thought distantly that Barton would be proud.

The landing was clear, and Phil went straight to the apartment number Romanov had given as their last position. Between the bullet holes on the door, he knocked out a signal code, and after a moment, Romanov called from inside, "Apex three delta!"

"Apex one delta silver!" Phil shouted back. Immediately, he heard movement as Romanov cleared away whatever had been covering the door. When it opened, the first thing Phil saw was the fury in her eyes and the jagged rip in her tacsuit where something had torn across her shoulder. For lack of a better quip, Phil said, "Did somebody order a pizza?"

The second thing he saw was Barton, lying motionless against the far wall, her pale hair and pretty face covered with dark blood, and his heart stopped cold in his chest.

"A fuse box exploded and knocked her out," Romanov told him. He didn't remember pushing past her into the apartment, but suddenly he was kneeling beside Barton, pressing his fingers gently against her fluttering pulse. "I don't think there are any other injuries, but she's not waking up."

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._ Phil wanted to pray and plead for Barton's safety, but he didn't think she'd appreciate it. "What about you?" he asked, but Romanov shook her head.

"Just this," she said, indicating her shoulder. "Not enough to slow me down."

"Good. Take point. Our exit should be clear, but you never know." He passed her his gun and carefully pulled Barton's limp weight across his shoulders. She felt somehow smaller than he expected, like the size of her personality should have added something to her mass, and he didn't let himself consider just how fragile she really was.

He nodded once, and Romanov led the way down to the empty street and away from the chaos. Neither of them spoke again until they were speeding out of the city in a stolen car, headed for the extraction point. Romanov was in the backseat, holding Barton steady as Phil tried in vain to avoid potholes and sharp turns.

"The mission failed," she said abruptly. "We were forced back before we could achieve the objective."

Phil scowled. "I know, and you can be damn sure someone at Ops is going to answer for that. Light security detail, my ass."

To his surprise, Romanov laughed. "You're something else, Coulson, you know that?"

“Yes well, that something else might be _suspended_ after today,” he grumbled, and Romanov just laughed again.

Barton remained unconscious for most of the trip home, and Phil found himself worrying, despite the medics’ assurances that she was fine, just very concussed. She woke up long enough to call Phil an asshole and demand a bacon sandwich before a cocktail of painkillers sent her blissfully back to sleep.

She was still asleep when Phil came to check on her in medical, snoring lightly while Romanov sat reading in a chair beside her. Romanov looked up at Phil in the doorway, eyeing him and the potted orchid in his hands with bemusement.

“Nobody brings her flowers,” she said, and Phil couldn’t help but bristle.

“Maybe they should.” He placed the orchid on a table next to Barton’s hearing aids, close enough that she would be able to reach the “Get Well Soon” card he leaned against it. Clearing his throat, he told Romanov, “I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you. I’ll try to be faster, next time.”

As he turned to leave, Romanov said abruptly, “She’s not going to sleep with you.”

Phil nearly choked. “Excuse me?” 

“Barton’s not going to sleep with you,” she repeated, as if it were somehow relevant. “She doesn’t sleep with anyone, and even if she did, she hates you.”

Phil felt suddenly overheated and sick. “First of all, this entire conversation is incredibly inappropriate, and I hope you know that I would _never_ take advantage of an asset under my command.” Romanov stared at him, unimpressed, and he went on, “Second, while Agent Barton is certainly very attractive, I can assure you I have exactly zero interest in... in engaging in... having...”

“Sex?”

“Sex. Thank you. Finally...” Phil sighed. “Finally, I’m aware of Agent Barton’s feelings toward me, and while I hope to improve the situation, it seems to have no impact on our professional efficiency, so it’s not a priority.”

Romanov raised an eyebrow. “You know she still has that ridiculous cactus you gave her.”

Unexpectedly, Phil’s heart gave a hard thud. “Really?”

“She named it Dickwad and throws darts at it when she’s angry,” Romanov said, and Phil felt himself deflate. “If it helps, there are other people she hates more.”

Given what he knew of Barton’s personal history, he didn’t think that said much. “At this point, I’d be happy to get out of the top ten.”

He left Romanov with a nod and went back to his office while her words clattered around in his head like bingo balls. It wasn’t until the next day, when he saw an email from Barton that read simply, _thanks for the flowers_ , that his heart jumped up in his chest, and the pattern clicked into place.

“Well,” Phil muttered, blinking at his computer screen. “Shit.”

***

Hill laughed. She laughed until there were tears in her eyes, and she was wheezing so hard, Phil started to worry. Eventually, she caught her breath, wiping her cheeks and grinning. Then she looked at him, and that set her off again, cackling until she hiccuped. 

Phil scowled. "I'm glad you're amused."

"It's just... It's too good. Oh god," she gasped. "You are so screwed."

"Explain to me why that merits a giggling fit?"

"Oh, come on. You have to admit it's funny. I mean, you..." She gave an undignified snerk. "When she liked you, you couldn't stand her, and now that she hates you, you're in love. It's a fucking romcom."

"I didn't say I was in love with her, I said I thought I might have inadvertently developed romantic feelings," he sighed. "And please don't ever use the term _romcom_ again."

"You're absolutely in love with her, and the really _really_ hillarious part is that you never would have realized it if you hadn't been such an ass," Hill said, clearly suppressing another bout of laughter. "You know she's not into sex, right? Like, at all."

Phil rolled his eyes. "Yes, and I don't know why you say that as if it should make me less attracted to her. The fact that I can't sleep with her doesn't mean she's not the most brilliant, passionate person I've ever met."

Hill blinked. After a moment, she said evenly, “You’re an okay guy, Phil. As Barton’s friend and mentor, I’m obligated to think nobody’s good enough for her, but if I had to pick an asshole to be pining over her, you wouldn’t be my last choice.”

“Thank you?”

“So I’m gonna tell you this up-front,” she went on. “You had your one strike, but that’s all you get. If you ever do or say anything to hurt her like that again, whether you mean to or not, I won’t be responsible for what happens next.”

He was about to protest, but he thought suddenly of the many horrors Natasha Romanov might concoct as punishment, or Melinda May, or even Hill herself. He thought of what _he_ would do to anyone who so much as looked at Barton without due respect, and he nodded gravely. “I understand.”

Hill smiled. “Good.”

His conversation with Hill made Phil all the more determined to keep his _pining_ to himself. He didn’t need Barton to reciprocate or to validate his admiration, and the last thing he wanted to do was to make her even more uncomfortable with him. This resolution to silence, however well-intentioned, lasted about as long as Phil’s plans usually did.

“Coulson!”

The world was made of pins and needles and thick grey clouds. It should have been quiet.

“Goddammit, Coulson, talk to me! Come on!”

That voice. Phil wanted to hate that voice. It was too loud and too close, and he still wanted to curl up inside it and be content forever.

“Please. For fuck’s sake, Phil, don’t do this to me, please.”

He blinked, and there was an angel leaning over him, bright and shining and come to collect his soul. He blinked again, and the angel’s face resolved into Barton’s, her blue eyes wide with worry. 

“Coulson? Hey! Hey, come on, stay with me.”

Everything was blurry, and everything hurt. Groaning, Phil tried to sit up, and everything hurt so much that the blurriness turned to black.

“Easy! Easy. Just stay still,” Barton soothed, her rough hand unexpectedly gentle on his forehead. She had him cradled in her arms, holding him carefully off of the rubble-strewn ground. Her mouth was close to his ear as she grumbled, “Fucking idiot. Got half a wall’s worth of shrapnel in your gut, and you’re trying to sprint off for some goddamn heroics, or whatever the hell you do when you’re not barking orders at people. Tell you what, asshole, you start barking orders right now and see what happens. Not a damn thing, that’s what. Because you’re clearly short on brain cells or some shit, and I’m not gonna listen to someone who pissed away what little sense god gave him.”

Lulled by her voice, Phil had to fight against both pain and peace to keep his eyes open. “Barton...”

“Nope. Nah uh. I know what you’re gonna say, and I’m not gonna let you waste your breath telling me to shut up.” Everything about her was steady as stone, but Phil was close enough to see the way her throat tightened when she wasn’t speaking. “You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore. Not after that shit. No way. Smart person hears somebody yelling about a bomb, they run, but not Agent Philip Jackass Coulson. No, you gotta run _at_ the bomb and get yourself torn up so your poor innocent asset has to sit here, holding your guts in, trapped in this shit heap that’s gonna come crashing down on us any second.”

She paused, breathing like there wasn’t enough air in the room, and Phil tried to get out a sound, to say her name, make her look at him. He barely managed to get his mouth around the _C_ before she started up again, quieter than before.

“So yeah. Fuck it. I’m gonna talk all I fucking want to. I’m gonna talk us both to death before the ceiling comes down, and you don’t get to say a damn thing about it, because this is all your fault. God, I fucking hate you.”

It was all true. She really did hate him, it really was his fault, and she really would sit there with him until he bled out or the broken building crushed them both. “Go,” he forced out weakly. Every single part of him wanted her to stay, but he made himself say again, “Go. Get out.”

“Fuck you,” she spat. “Fuck you and your goddamn self-sacrificing superhero bullshit. You’re not Captain America, you stupid asshole. You’re not even wearing fucking body armor. You know who _is_ wearing body armor? Me. You know who could have got hit with that same chunk of wall and been fine? _Me_. You know who didn’t need your dumbass diving in to cover them? I’ll give you a hint.”

“Love you.” He didn’t mean to say it. If ever there was a wrong place and time, this was it, but he would rather die wrapped in that feeling than stay tuned into the sense that his life was creeping out of him. "I'm sorry. I love you. Please."

For a second, the surprise that overwhelmed her face made her look like a little girl who had fallen down and was astonished to find herself on the ground. Then she scowled and muttered, "Well now I really can't leave."

"Clint..." Her name tasted like clean earth and cut grass. God, he wanted her to stay. "Get... get out of here, Agent Barton. Th- that's an order."

"Told you I wasn't taking your orders, especially if you're gonna go all death-bed sappy on me." With added venom, she went on, "Jesus fuck, Coulson, you really are an asshole. You don't just say that shit to a person, and you sure as hell don't say that shit to me, not now, not like this. Not ever. Fuck. You're the fucking worst, you know that? You're an uptight, brainless bureaucrat with no sense of humor, no people skills, and _goddammit, Coulson, you open your eyes right the fuck now!_ "

He wanted so much to sleep but not half as much as he wanted to look at her. The words were in his head to make a joke, to tease her about gazing into his eyes, but he couldn't get the sounds out of his mouth.

"You don't get to check out just because you don't wanna listen to me. That's not how this works. You're just gonna have to put up with me until Nat comes swanning in with a rescue team, okay?" 

Her voice wasn't steady, anymore. Whether she was shaking or the building was becoming more unstable, Phil didn't know, but he listened to her, hanging on every word until he couldn't keep back the dark and sank down into nothing.

What happened next was related to him after the fact, mostly in bits and piece from various reports and half-remembered conversations, all filtered through the halcyon haze of very good pain medication. The only thing he cared to confirm was that Barton, who sustained two fractures and a bruised rib in the blast, had carried him up three flights of stairs and through a half-collapsed hallway to get him out of the building. According to one frazzled nurse, she’d refused to leave his side until the doctors promised her he would be fine. After that, apparently, she never came back.

Phil spent a week in medical, graciously receiving the sporadic stream of well-wishers, and stopping himself from asking about Barton beyond a general inquiry into her well-being. 

“She’s been practicing her knife-throwing, since she’s not allowed to shoot until her ribs heal,” May told him. “Rumor has it she’s using your picture as a target.”

Phil winced. “That seems about right.”

May hummed vaguely and said, “She doesn’t actually hate you, you know.”

“I’m pretty sure she does,” Phil replied, “but that’s nice of you to say.”

May just hummed again, and Phil wondered if she knew something he didn’t. Considering the ever-expanding breadth of his ignorance, that seemed likely.

After he was released, Barton continued to avoid him, and it felt as though a cloud had fallen over Phil’s days. It was too quiet, too dull, missing all the sounds of life and the sharp brightness of sunshine. He thought about sending her a letter, an email, a text, about calling or going to her apartment or waiting in the shooting range until she happened by, but he refused to be the kind of man who pestered a woman for attention he didn’t deserve.

Instead, he wrote “I’m sorry” on a postcard from the zoo and left it on her doorstep with a bundle of bright blue forget-me-nots. Even if she chose never to speak to him again, at least he could say that he brought her flowers.

***

Phil didn't get many quiet nights at home. Between injuries, international crises, and paperwork, he was lucky if he got to sleep in his own bed, much less relax on the couch. Tonight was a rare festival of sweatpants, frozen lasagna, and season two of _Dog Cops_ , which he hated but resolved to watch just so he would know what the hell Barton was talking about. He wasn't at all invested in the burgeoning romance between Detective Spike and the mysterious poodle informant. Not at all.

The knock on the door interrupted a ridiculous sidewalk chase scene, and Phil didn't bother hitting pause as he went to answer, prepared to scowl at whoever was infringing on his night off. His irritation died when he found Barton standing in the hallway, arms folded across her chest, shuffling her purple sneakers against the carpet.

“Hey,” she mumbled.

“Cl- Agent Barton. I... Hello. Hi.” Phil remembered that he was in his pajamas with a marinara stain on his shirt, and he cleared his throat. “This is a surprise. Pleasant surprise.”

Barton rolled her eyes. “Whatever. We need to talk,” she said, pushing past him into the apartment. She took a moment to stare around in open curiosity, and Phil was painfully aware of every dirty dish and spare bit of paper. Seeing the television, she paused,and her mouth tightened like she was trying not to smile. “Crappy episode. Season three is better.”

“What? Oh. I was just...” Phil fumbled with the remote to stop the video. “You seem to like it, so I thought I’d give it a try.”

Barton flushed darkly and scowled. “You’re a real fucking jerk, you know that? First you’re all nice and shit, then you can’t stand me and tell me I’m _vapid_ and annoying, and then flowers and heroics and suddenly you’re dying and telling me you love me? What kind of asshole does that? And it’s not like we were even friends or dating or... I don’t even _date_! You know that, right? Like, never. At all.”

“I know,” Phil said, and Barton stopped short.

“You know?” she asked. Phil nodded. “Well then what the hell? Why the fuck would you be go all death-bed declaration on someone who’s not gonna get with you?”

Phil sighed. “Because it’s true.” Barton sputtered, but before she could say anything, Phil went on, “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ve been a complete jackass, and you’re right to hate me. I’m sorry for everything I said to hurt you, and I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to make you uncomfortable. I don’t love you because I think you might sleep with me, I love you because you’re...” He cast about for a better word than _amazing_. “You’re you. You’re brilliant and fearless, and I let one stupid assumption keep me from seeing that. I shouldn’t have dumped my feelings on you like that, but I won’t insult you by making excuses or saying it’s not true. I’m sorry.”

She stared at him for a long time, her sharp blue eyes unblinking, and Phil was absolutely certain she could see right through him. If she focused hard enough, he was sure she could kill him with a look.

Finally, she said flatly, “An act. You said it was an act. You wanna know why I put on that act, why I bat my lashes and let those dumb lugs paw at me? Numbers.”

Phil blinked. “I don’t...”

“Numbers. Stats. Like how snipers are thirty percent more likely than any other asset to get left behind when a mission goes south.” All the air went out of Phil’s lungs like he’d been punched, and he took a step back. Barton just kept going, “Or how an agent’s chances of rescue increase by seventeen percent if other agents describe them as ‘friendly’ and ‘likeable’. How men respond more positively to women they see as as ‘fun’ and ‘available,’ and how the reason there’s so few female officers is because female recruits are twelve percent more likely to get kicked out for insubordination or killed in action."

She was standing close to him, closer than he'd realized, staring him down and making it even harder to breathe. 

“Nat’s got the sultry, mysterious thing going for her, and she’s got the skills to get herself out of pretty much anywhere. Me? Most of the time, I’m stuck up in a nest with nowhere to go but down if the shit hits the fan. I’ve got maybe four friends in the world, I’m not sexy, and I can’t talk pretty,” she said. “These assholes already think I’m sweet and dumb, and all I can do is run with it and pray it makes ‘em care enough not to throw my ass on the fire. So you sit there and you tell me to quit playing up the girl-next-door shtick, and you know what I hear? I hear you saying that you know it’s bullshit, you know I’m not a nice girl, and you’ve got no reason to go out of your way to save my ass in a jam. No handler’s gonna come back for an asset he can’t stand.”

Phil wanted to kill every single monster who had ever abandoned her and rebuild the whole world to make her feel safe, and only the certainty that she would kill him without a thought kept him from putting his arms around her and never letting go. "Any handler who doesn’t should be stripped of his badge and run out of SHIELD on a rail," he said, and her frown deepened. "Being annoying isn't a capital offense. You shouldn't have to feel like your life depends on people liking you."

"Except that it does," she snapped. "Or it did. Never really seemed to matter with you. "

"It never has." Phil pressed on before she could answer, "Listen to me, please. You don't have to do anything to make me care what happens to you. I might be a jerk sometimes, but I'll never ask you to be anything other than what you are, and I will _never_ leave you behind."

"God, you fucking... You're just a..." She made a sound of frustration. "What the hell is wrong with you? Why can't you act like a normal person with normal feelings, instead of..."

"Instead of treating you like a human being?" he suggested. Barton gave him a look like she was about to punch him, and Phil put up his hands in surrender, skirting around her toward the window. If he'd known she was coming, he would have greeted her with an entire garden, but the potted flower on the window sill seemed appropriate. As always, all he could offer her was everything he had to give.

Taking the plant from him, she frowned angrily. "The fuck is this?"

"It's a peace lily," he explained. "They're natural air purifiers. They pull toxins out of the a-"

"I know what it is. Hill has, like, twenty of them," she cut him off. "Why are you giving me yours?"

"In general, because I want to give you every beautiful thing I see every day." She rolled her eyes, and he tried not to sigh. "In particular, because it reminds me of you."

She snorted. "Why? Because it's a cess pit for all the shit in the room, dressed up like decoration?"

"Because it makes a room better just by being in it," he replied, and Barton froze. "Because it's lovely and practical, and it keeps right on growing and blooming, no matter how much poison it takes on. Because having it around makes me feel like I'm home, not just in a place with my name on the lease. Because it's ridiculous and indifferent, and I still love it."

Barton's face was tight, like she was holding all her muscles still to keep from showing any feeling. When she spoke, the hard shell cracked, and her expression crumbled. "I don't love you."

Phil's chest clenched with a dull pain that was quickly becoming familiar, but it changed nothing. "You don't have to."

"I don't even know if I like you!" she said desperately. "All I know about you is that you're an asshole with a crush on Captain America."

"Those are probably the highlights," Phil admitted, and he was rewarded with a short laugh. "I want you to like me," he went on. "I want us to be friends, but you can hate me for the rest of your life, if that's how you feel. It doesn't change anything. I still love you, and I'll still come running when you need a rescue."

Barton stared at the lily in her hands like it was an alien thing that might come to life and try to strangle her in her sleep. Instead of silent stillness, she was humming faintly and tapping her foot the way she did during mission briefings, absorbing and processing, and that was always going to drive Phil crazy, no matter how much he adored her.

Finally, he said tensely, "Listen, I'm already anxious, and that's very adamantly not helping."

"What? Oh." Barton shifted one foot over the other, but she was still vibrating with energy. After a moment, she asked, "You're really okay with the no sex thing?"

Phil blinked. "Why would I not be?" She gave him a look. "Barton, I'm thrilled to even have an actual conversation with you. My most ambitious hope is that you might one day let me hug you or hold your hand. I'm certainly not expecting a kiss."

She glanced at the door as if running seemed like a good option, but she looked back at Phil with steel in her bright blue eyes. "Okay. Here's how this is gonna work."

"How what's going t-?"

"You're gonna take me on dates. Nothing fancy, no trying to impress me. Just movies, pizza, that kinda shit." She shoved her free hand in her pocket and looked away. "Nobody's ever taken me on a date, and you're already giving me fucking flowers, so you might as well do the whole romance thing for real. You don't touch me unless I say so, and you don't tell anybody we're going out. You get a month, then I make an informed decision about the whole fucked up situation, and you agree to whatever I say. No negotiation, no arguing. That's the deal. If you're not on board..."

"Yes," Phil said immediately. "All of it, yes. Absolutely."

Barton narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "I say no, you put a lid on all this doe-eyed crap and keep your pining to yourself. You got that?" 

The only thing worse than a lifetime of Clint hating him had to be a lifetime of her patient tolerance while he pretended not to reach for every flower he saw, but Phil nodded. Any chance to be near her was worth the risk.

"Okay, then." With a nod of her own, she turned on her heel toward the door. "Thirty-one days, Coulson. Starts tomorrow."

"I'll pick you up at seven," he said, heart pounding, and he could have sworn he saw her smile as she left.

***

Somewhere around day ten, Phil realized that Clint honestly didn't want him to impress her or do anything especially romantic, and it wasn't until day fourteen that he finally understood she wasn't humoring him with the flowers. The first time he saw her in a daisy-print dress, playing nervously with a long arrow-shaped pendant necklace, he nearly proposed on the spot.

"Yes, I like flowers," she said defensively. "I also like pink shit and romance novels, and if you say one word about Britney Spears, I will kick you in the balls."

Phil beamed at her. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

Rolling her eyes, she punched him in the arm and grumbled, "Shut up."

Days twenty-one through twenty-five were spent in Barcelona, shutting down a murder cult that was terrorizing the city, and Phil picked flowers out of window boxes to hide in Barton's gear.

By day thirty, Phil had learned, among other things, that Barton loved museums and Frank Capra movies, owned ninety-seven different decks of playing cards, and had very strong opinions about Alexander the Great's military tactics. For his own part, he discovered a reluctant fondness for Brooklyn-style pizza, a tendency to make terrible puns when he was happy, and the knowledge that he wanted to spend every one of the next thirty-thousand days making Barton laugh. 

On the thirty-first day, he arrived at Clint's apartment twenty-three minutes late, out of breath from running, and carefully clutching an armful of red roses. As she opened the door, he panted, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. There was a-"

"Are you bleeding?" Frowning, she reached up to touch his forehead, and he flinched at the sudden sting.

"Possibly," he said. "Probably. There was an explosion in one of the labs, and I was..."

"Rescuing the poor scientists trapped in the rubble?" she guessed, rolling her eyes as she pulled him inside. "Come on, asshole. You look like you're about to fall over."

He was, as it happened, but he wasn't going to waste a second of this day. "We might still make the movie if we hurry."

"And have you passed out, drooling on my shoulder? No thanks." She took the roses from him and set them gently on the kitchen counter. Instead of leading him toward the couch, she took his hand and guided him to sit on the bed.

The studio was small and surprisingly tidy, decorated with bright colors and a mismatched collection of knick-knacks that all had stories of their own. In the window over the sink, a cactus, an orchid, and a peace lily sat side by side in their pots. Phil looked down at his rumpled suit and scraped knuckles and felt more out of place than he ever had in his life.

Barton disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a cotton ball and a large bandaid. "Here. This'll keep you from getting blood on my pillow," she said, swiping roughly at the cut on his forehead.

"Ow!" Phil jumped, and she gave him a look. 

"Don't be a baby. It's just a cut." He had just enough time to see that the band-aid was festooned with cartoon turtles before she was smoothing it onto his skin. "There. Now get undressed and get in bed."

"What?" Phil's head was spinning with exhaustion and reeling with nerves, and nothing that was happening made any sense.

"Jesus, you really are beat, aren't you?" she said. "When was the last time you slept?"

"Um..." He would have told her if he could have remembered.

"Okay, let's make this easy. Have you slept since I saw you at lunch yesterday?"

Phil thought for a moment, then shook his head slowly. Barton sighed.

"Shoes, jacket, tie, belt. Shirt's up to you," she commanded, going to the sink for a glass of water and a damp towel. "Date night's cancelled. You need sleep. You better not be one of those jerks who kicks and snores and shit, because I will totally make you sleep on the floor."

She smelled like camellia blossoms and gun oil, and he could see the dark red line of a healing knife wound in her shoulder, a souvenir from Barcelona. Phil tried to protest as she stripped off his jacket and started scrubbing the soot and dried blood off of his face and hands. "But it's..."

"It's not up for discussion, is what it is." She kicked off his shoes, grumbling, "Come on, jerkwad. Are you gonna make me do this by myself?"

"Huh? Oh. Right." He fumbled at the knot on his tie and pulled off his belt, shifting obediently so that Barton could push down the bedspread. "I just... It's the end of th-"

"You know I had a quick drop in Rio this morning?" she said. "Been up since, like, two AM. I mean, it was a milk run, but god that is a long flight. And you know how Tanhauser is with his fucking debriefs. I swear I spent more time telling him about the drop than it took to actually make it. Of course, he only makes the girl agents do that, and he spent the whole time pretending not to stare at my tits. Fucking dick."

"He what?" Phil didn't believe there were any more awful people in SHIELD than there were anywhere else, but Barton seemed to have a way of finding them. "I can... I'll talk to Hill."

"Oh, Hill knows. He's got, like, an important uncle, or something." Barton shrugged. "Point is, I'm about as run down as you are, so I think we oughta just call it a night. I was looking forward to the movie, but I kinda just wanna curl up with a book, y'know? I'm in the middle of this thesis on defensive applications of small-scale electromagnetic fields. The conclusions are pretty boring, but the theory's good. You should read it."

The bed was soft, and her hands were strong as she gently eased him down and pulled the covers up over him. The pillow smelled like her shampoo, and Phil decided that he wanted to spend every night of the rest of his life right here. "Clint..."

"I'm just gonna put on my PJs and make some tea. You go on and pass out like you're clearly about to do."

She was wearing a sky-blue dress with purple chevrons around the edges, her toes painted neon pink, all dressed up for a night out with her guy. Phil reached out to catch her hand as she turned away. "Clint, it's the end of the month."

Her fingers tightened around his. "Yeah, I know." She paused, then she leaned down and gave him a soft, warm kiss. 

It was over before Phil could even begin to process the sensation or memorize the curves and crevices of Clint’s lips. He didn’t dare close his eyes for fear that he’d open them and find he’d been dreaming, alone in his bed on day thirty-two, and that was how he saw the bright, sweet smile as she pulled away.

“Go to sleep, you big dumbass,” she said, still smiling. “Don’t worry. I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

“Oh. Okay. Goodnight, then,” he murmured, too tired to keep himself from adding, “I love you.”

Barton sighed. “Goodnight, Phil. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”

Phil managed a short laugh just before his eyes drifted closed, and he dropped into a deep, peaceful sleep.

Barton’s snoring woke him up in the middle of the night, and he reached over sleepily to push her mouth closed. She gave an irritated snuffle and rolled to her side, tucking herself against him and gripping his undershirt.

“Stay,” she grumbled around a yawn, and Phil was only just awake enough to think that was a silly thing to say. Why would he want to go anywhere she wasn’t? With a light kiss against her brow, he wrapped his arm around her and went back to sleep, already looking forward to tomorrow.


End file.
